THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VII, Issue # 159, July 25, 2005
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
SHOULD WE BAN CHEMOTHERAPY TOO?
USAID'S ANTI-PESTICIDE POLICIES MUST CHANGE,
OR MILLIONS OF HUMAN BEINGS WILL CONTINUE TO DIE
By Paul K. Driessen
RADICAL ENVIRONMENTALISM, BUREAUCRACY, & HUMAN HEALTH: THE THREAT TO HUMAN HEALTH IN AFRICAN
NATIONS POSED BY THE ANTI-PESTICIDE POLICIES OF RADICAL ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVIST GROUPS LIKE GREENPEACE &
BUREAUCRATIC HEALTHCARE AGENCIES LIKE THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION, THE UNICEF UNITED NATIONS CHILDREN'S
FUND, & THE UNITED STATES AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT -- CONGRESSIONAL LEGISLATION NEEDED TO
REQUIRE USAID & OTHER AMERICAN TAXPAYER-SUPPORTED AGENCIES TO PUT DDT & OTHER INSECTICIDES BACK INTO THE
AGENCIES' MALARIA CONTROL ARSENALS
FULL STORY:
Would you take medications that could cause anemia, nausea, diarrhea, hair loss, and even increased risk of infection and fetal
defects?
Most people with terminal cancer would jump at the chance to take such risks. And, if a radical environmental activist “stakeholder”
tried to prevent them from undergoing chemotherapy, because of “ethical” concerns about its “dangers” or a preference for “more
appropriate” alternatives like surgery, broccoli or hospice care, the response of terminal cancer patients would be fast and furious.
Africa faces a similar situation. Only, instead of cancer, the killer is malaria. Instead of chemotherapy drugs, the interventions are
insecticides. And, in addition to radical environmental activists, patients must contend with healthcare agencies that often oppose
insecticides and promote largely ineffective alternatives.
Malaria infects up to 500,000,000 people a year – more men, women and children than live in the United States, Canada and Mexico
combined! It kills 2,000,000 every year – a number of people equal to the population of Houston, Texas.
The vast majority live in sub-Saharan Africa, and nearly 90% are children and pregnant women. In 2002, malaria killed 150,000
Ethiopians, 100,000 Ugandans, and 34,000 Kenyan children.
Victims become so weak they cannot work for weeks on end. Many are left with permanent brain damage – and immune systems so
enfeebled that they die of AIDS, typhus, dysentery, or tuberculosis. Malaria costs have impoverished Africa, which has been
suffering $12 billion in lost productivity every year.
However, the World Health Organization, the UNICEF United Nations Children's Fund, the U.S. Agency for International
Development, wealthy foundations, and radical environmental activists still insist that African nations rely on inadequate bed net,
drug, and “integrated vector management” programs – and avoid pesticides, especially DDT.
If the United States of America had disease and death rates akin to Africa’s, 100,000,000 Americans would get malaria every year and
250,000 children would die. America's hospitals would be overwhelmed, its economy devastated, and American citizens would
demand immediate action, action involving use of every pesticide and other weapon in existence.
But the U.S.A. and Europe "overused" DDT to eradicate malaria. They then banned the pesticide and now generally oppose its use.
Nevertheless, a few African nations still spray DDT in tiny amounts on the walls and eaves of cinderblock or mud-and-thatch houses.
For six months, it repels mosquitoes, kills any that land on walls, and irritates the rest, so they don’t bite.
No other pesticide, at any price, is this effective, and even mosquitoes resistant to DDT’s killer talents succumb to its repellent
properties.
Used this way, virtually no DDT gets into the environment. Most important, it’s safe for humans. Hundreds of millions of people –
American GIs, Holocaust survivors, and parents and children all over the USA, Europe, and Asia – were sprayed with DDT, with no
significant ill effects.
Indeed, the worst thing Greenpeace and other radical environmentalist groups can say is that “measurable quantities” of DDT and
its DDE metabolite are “present” in human fatty tissue, blood, and mother’s breast milk. Some researchers, they claim, “think” DDE
“could” be inhibiting lactation and “may” therefore be “contributing” to “lactation failure” around the world.
In fact, lactation failure results mostly from malnutrition and disease. The problem is minor compared to the effects of chemotherapy,
and irrelevant compared to the risk of losing more children to malaria. “African mothers would be overjoyed if DDT in our bodies was
their biggest worry,” says Ugandan farmer and businesswoman Fiona Kobusingye. They’d be thrilled if Greenpeace and other
radical environmentalists would show greater concern for the lives of African mothers and children, by supporting insecticide use.
South Africa’s DDT household spraying program cut malaria rates by 80% in 18 months. The country was then able to treat a much
smaller number of seriously ill patients with new artemisinin-based drugs, and slash malaria rates by over 90% in just three years!
Mozambique trains a few people in each community, and sends them out to spray every house twice a year, in a successful and
inexpensive program. Zambia has a similar program. However, when Uganda announced earlier this year that it was going to use
DDT to control malaria, the European Union warned that it might ban all agricultural exports from the country, if even a trace of DDT
was found on them!
Last year, USAID spent $80 million “on malaria.” But 85 percent of this went to consultants, and 5 percent to promoting the use of
insecticide-treated nets. It spent nothing on actually buying nets, drugs or pesticides.
Too often, USAID, WHO, and UNICEF emphasize ultra precaution about alleged risks from pesticides, at the expense of millions of
deaths from diseases that pesticides could prevent. They proclaim insecticide-treated bed nets a success for reducing malaria rates
by 20%, but say DDT was a failure because it did not completely eradicate the disease. Worst, until just a year ago, they were
providing Africans with anti-malarial drugs that they had known for years fail 50 to 80% of the time.
No wonder malaria rates have risen 10% in the seven years since their Roll Back Malaria campaign promised to cut rates in half by
2010.
DDT will never control malaria by itself. However, it is a vital weapon against a disease carried by different parasites and many
species of mosquitoes, some of which can breed in hoof prints during the rainy season.
Decisions about which weapons to use, where and when, should be made by health ministers in countries with malaria problems,
not by anti-pesticide environmental activists and bureaucrats in air-conditioned, malaria-free offices in Washington, Geneva, or
Brussels. These health ministers need a precautionary principle that safeguards families from real, immediate, life-threatening risks
– instead of their peoples being condemned to poverty, disease and premature death in order to prevent minor, conjectural risks
from pesticides.
Most important, African and other malaria-endemic countries need progress NOW, not 20 or 50 years from now, when (hopefully)
a vaccine has finally been developed, sufficient artemisinin drugs are available for every victim, mosquito breeding areas are
controlled, and communities have modern homes and hospitals with electricity, window screens, and running water.
Access to life-saving pesticides is a basic human right. We wouldn’t ban chemotherapy because those potent drugs present risks,
or prohibit Florida and New York from using insecticides to protect people, horses, and birds against West Nile virus. We must
stop preventing African nations from using DDT and other insecticides to control diseases that kill millions of their citizens
annually.
President George W. Bush and many members of the U.S. Congress support major funding increases to combat malaria and break
Africa’s perpetual cycle of disease, famine, and poverty. However, this money will do little to reduce disease, if it is spent on more
consultants, conferences, reports and bed nets, and only insignificant amounts are directed to pesticide and other programs that
actually work.
The President and Congress need to ensure that health agencies’ financial practices are open to scrutiny, their misguided policies
and priorities are corrected, and they are held accountable for the success or failure of their programs. The U.S. government needs
to ensure that insecticides and household spraying with DDT are restored to the world’s arsenal for combating malaria.
Otherwise millions of human beings will continue to die on the altar of "politically correct" ideologies.
© 2005 Paul K. Driessen
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Africa South of the Sahara -- Black Africa
Paul K. Driessen is Senior Policy Advisor for the Congress of Racial Equality, the Committee for A Constructive Tomorrow, and the
Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise. Driessen is author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death, which can be
obtained at www.Eco-Imperialism.com. Email: pdriessen@cox.net --- Telephone:
(703) 698-6171
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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